Charles Griffin Coffin

Captain Zenas Coffin was one of the most successful in this line of business as a practical ship master and ship owner up to the time of his death which occurred 1828 That same year Charles G and Henry Coffin two brothers began the business under the firm name of CG & H Coffin and continued it very up to 1863 or until after the breaking out of the civil war They imported millions gallons of oil mostly sperm They built and fitted out many ships and like their were their own insurers Now and then they met with losses like others and could trace such to misplaced confidence in some drunken captain whom they had command of a ship This only confirmed them in their life long extreme total principles This firm was among the first to send ships with merchandise to in 1849 and 1850 They also held for years large interests in that country and their business connection for over fifty years The two brothers still continue to live their pleasant homes at Nantucket although retired from active life pleasant Nantucket although retired from active life Charles G Coffin has filled many important offices of trust and honor on the island during the past fifty or sixty years doing more gratuitous public service than any other man who ever lived on Nantucket He has been noted for his broad philanthropy in every benevolent cause In 1846 they sent one of their ships with provisions to the starving people of Ireland In the days of his prosperity he contributed largely to nearly every cause of a charitable nature within his knowledge The promotion of education and science always found in him a willing contributor To day may be seen at Harvard University Cambridge Mass under the dome of the Bond Observatory on a marble tablet erected in 1843 a f names of contributors to the observatory and telescope Among these names are many of the marked men of this century some of whom have left reputations of national fame Charles G Coffin was one of the contributors In 1824 he married Miss Eliza Mc Arthur of Hudson NY by whom he had ten children five are now living In 1857 his first wife died He married the second time in 1858 Mrs Susan F Macy who died in 1879 The Coffin Association of America which celebrated in 1881 the two hundredth anniversary of Tristram Coffin at Nantucket did most fittingly choose for its president Charles G Coffin who is now the representative man of this long race of men of many centuries Eighty years of unblemished life spent in one community demonstrated the survival of the fittest The thousands of this race who assembled at the island on that occasion to do homage to the memory of their progenitor thought the mantle had fallen upon the right one and when he shall have passed away will say Peace to the just man's memory let it grow Greener with years and blossom through the flight Of ages let the mimic canvas show His calm benevolent features let the light Stream on his deeds of love that shunned the sight Of all but Heaven and in the book of fame The glorious record of his virtues write And hold it up to men and bid them claim A palm like his and catch from him the hallowed flame Mr Coffin died April 13 1882 after an illness of more than a year during which he was a great sufferer but never complained his faculties were unimpaired to the end

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